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IBM is conducting research that involves making use of the IBM Java virtual machine in a cloud-based setting as a way to provide dynamic services, especially to mobile devices.

If the research project works out, it might be considered "the operating system of the future for both embedded systems and the cloud," said Jan Rellermeyer, IBM research staff member at IBM Research in Austin, Texas, who explained the intent behind the research at this week's Design Automation Conference.

More about the Java virtual machine

The idea behind trying to establish the JVM as a software stack in the cloud is to facilitate a "continuous platform experience" between JVM-based applications running in the cloud and mobile devices, Rellermeyer noted.

Working with the JDK, IBM is experimenting with a dedicated JVM on application servers and a shared JVM for a PaaS (platform as a service). "The question is how can we turn the JVM into more of a cloud-type platform," Rellermeyer said.

However, the research project is showing that IBM is facing some obstacles to getting the JVM to scale to the level that might be expected in a multi-tenant platform-as-a-service, he acknowledged. But IBM is considering what architectural changes it can make with JVM "to make it more scalable and amenable to the foundation of PaaS as well as more lightweight in general," Rellermeyer said.